Henriette Avram

Henriette Davidson Avram, born in Manhattan on 7 October 1919 and died on 22 April 2006, was an American computer programmer and systems analyst who developed the MARC format, short for Machine Readable Cataloging. MARC became the international data standard for bibliographic and holdings information in libraries. She created it in the late 1960s and early 1970s at the Library of Congress, where it made possible the automation of many library functions and the electronic sharing of bibliographic information between libraries that kept their existing cataloging standards. She studied at Hunter College and George Washington University and was married to Herbert Avram.